Wish of the Polar Express
by Norwesterner
Summary: Christmas, and wishing, is not just for kids, but for all of us . . . as a man discovers when a train from his past shows up to take him away . . . to a Christmas wish that someone else made!
1. Chapter 1

_When we're children, Christmas perhaps starts out as bright, busy, but confusing. Later it becomes about presents, excitement, Christmas trees, and Santa Claus . . . bringing presents._

_But just as what we want for Christmas changes as we grow, so does the Season itself and its meaning. Stuff tends to become less important as we gather more of that each Christmas — while feelings, experiences, and perhaps an indefinable sense of togetherness and even love, seem to take on more importance, even urgency if we feel we don't have them._

_For some of us, Christmastime sometimes only reminds us of what we don't have, but want deep within ourselves. We then at times hope, even unconsciously, for someone or something to either bring to us, or take us to, what we truly want. Fortunately, author Chris Van Allsburg and Warner Brothers Entertainment, who own the 'Polar Express' and its characters from the book and film respectively, have created a marvelous vehicle and means to do just that at Christmas._

_So I invite you to join a boy, who has now become a man, as he takes an unexpected second trip from an increasingly hard everyday world on a train that will not only bring him to someplace . . . but to someone . . . he didn't even know he wanted for Christmas._

_Enjoy!_

— _Norwesterner_

* * *

I was running for my train.

I had just made it to the snowy platform of Van Buren Street Station where I normally boarded the 5:35 evening South Shore train out of Chicago. The sheltered platforms were offering little protection tonight though from the winds and snow blowing off of nearby Lake Michigan. Almost within reach of warmth and shelter on the train, I slipped and fell as its doors were starting to close. My head hit hard against the frozen platform, and things went dark for a minute.

When I came to, my train was gone, and I was alone. The winds and snow were strangely diminished, and now blowing gently. Everything was now quiet, but at least I wasn't aching from my fall on the platform like I thought I would be.

_Just my luck,_ I thought. I had been laid off from my job at a Chicago commodities trading firm the previous week. It wasn't a perfect job . . . and I wasn't sure after this second job loss in several years if I had all that much of a knack for commodities and options trading. But the loss of it, especially around Christmas, was hard . . . and it hurt. I kept commuting to Chicago from my home in Beverly Shores, Indiana though on my monthly South Shore pass, seeking job leads and interviews anyway. Nothing had panned out however. I had just completed another interview today, on Christmas Eve no less, where I was told guys with MBA degrees in Finance were a dime a dozen now.

I hadn't told my sister, Sarah, or my parents about my situation yet. I had only told them that I was busy and wouldn't be able to come home for Christmas this year. Fact was though that I'd spent about the last of my ready cash on my monthly home mortgage payment. I liked my house, because it was both attractive . . . and near the tracks. Ever since my ride on the Polar Express years ago now, I had wanted to live near trains . . . in a nice neighborhood, but near trains. Now at last, after saving for years as a junior trader and accounts manager, I had such a home . . . and I didn't want to give it up.

The Polar Express . . . my ride on that train seemed so long ago now. But I still had the sleigh bell I had both found and had been given during that ride — and I could still hear it. But now, I was the only one I knew of who could. While the rest of Christmas this year was seeming to collapse in disappointment, for some reason that bell still rang for me.

I sat up on the now lonely, dark, and snowy platform, and re-slung my laptop bag over my shoulder, just hoping the computer inside wasn't damaged by my fall. However, I couldn't hear the normal sounds of the city around me . . . just the gently blowing wind off Lake Michigan. I looked at a clock on the platform that seemed to be frozen at the wrong time . . . ten minutes before midnight. That clock was clearly broken, I thought, as I'd only just missed my 5:35 PM South Shore train . . . right?

Then I began to hear something.

Another train was approaching. It seemed a bit soon to be the next South Shore train, however. Likely it was a Metra Electric headed only as far as South Chicago. But it didn't hum quietly like the electric commuter trains that ran on this line . . . this approaching train chuffed.

Then suddenly, a whistle blew loudly, practically right next to me . . . scaring me out of my skin as it announced the train's arrival. Suddenly, I was enveloped on the platform for a moment by clouds of warm steam. When the white clouds of vapor began clearing, I was next to what seemed like a black wall. It was made of riveted metal, and had white letters on it . . . P . . . O . . . L . . . A . . . R . . .

Wait a minute . . . that wasn't possible. I was about to continue reading the rest of the letters obscured by steam towards what clearly sounded like a steam locomotive, when a nearby voice caused me to look the other way, towards the rear of the train.

"All aboaaaaard!!" the voice said.

"No," I now said out loud, shaking my head. I must have hit my head really hard on the platform.

"All aboaaaaard!!" the voice repeated.

"Wait, you mean me?" I now asked, walking towards what seemed like the train's conductor.

"Well . . . 'ya comin'?" he asked.

"You're really here . . . to pick me up? Aren't I a little old for this now?" I asked in return. I no longer needed to ask where the train was going.

"Hold this please," he said, passing me his lantern, as he reached inside the train car's door for his clipboard.

"You're right . . . we normally don't pick your sort up," he said, looking at his clipboard. "Exceptions are sometimes allowed however, for unfulfilled wishes made at Christmas . . . but only for those who still believe in what we do around here. Looks like you made the list though, according to what I'm reading. And we are making an extra run here . . . just for those with such wishes."

"I am out of a job, and I have been wishing for another one, and I need cash from somewhere if I'm gonna even buy groceries next week . . ." I started to note out loud.

"Oh, but you didn't wish that to Mr. C, Santa," the Conductor crisply noted. "Besides, we're not here to pick you up because of a wish you made anyway . . . but for a wish someone else made."

That made me do a double-take.

"But if I were you," he said just inches from my face now, ". . . I would think about getting onboard."

This was just too much for me to handle. Here I was, about to get on a train that I had remembered was meant for children . . . to see the North Pole and Santa. A train that my now grown-up and rational mind had trouble accepting as real . . . and a train that was apparently here to pick me up, not even because I wished it, but because someone else had.

"Sorry," I found myself saying as I shook my head and began backing away on the platform.

"Suit yourself," the conductor sighed, ". . . but you won't be the one you disappoint . . . and not for the first time either."

He stepped into the train car's doorway and waved his lantern up and down to the engineer, and then moved back into the car.

"What'cha have to lose?" a voice seemingly asked all around me, before the soft, wind-driven snow swirled and formed into the train's hobo that I remembered from all those years ago. He was suddenly standing next to me now. "If you don't get on . . . your next stop could be lookin', and livin', like me."

For some reason, the suddenly all-too-real prospect of living like a homeless hobo compelled my feet to move. My hand grabbed the rail beside the train car's door, and I practically swung myself into the car as the train began to leave the station. I now looked from the vestibule where I was into the train car's interior. Unlike the last time I had ridden the Polar Express however . . . this time, there was no one else in the warmly-lit coach, except the conductor now looking back at me through a glass porthole in the door.

He now slid open the door that separated us.

"Mind if I sit in the Observation Parlor Car this time?" I asked. "We don't get those on the normal commuter trains I ride these days."

"Suit yourself," he said once again. "But your ticket, please."

I remembered this part. I checked first my right overcoat pocket. No ticket. Then I checked the left pocket in my overcoat. No ticket either.

"Keep checking," the conductor curtly noted with a little exasperation.

I checked the pockets in my suit jacket under the overcoat. No ticket.

"Try the one closest to you," he suggested, looking away, ". . . to your heart."

Betraying a very puzzled look on my face, my right hand reached past my overcoat and jacket for the pocket in my shirt. There it detected something that felt like foil. I produced it . . . a ticket, embossed on red foil this time.

_The Polar Express — Extra Section_

_ROUND TRIP_

. . . it read.

"Thank you," the conductor said as he took and began punching my newly found ticket.

After his punching a blizzard of chads, just like I remembered, he handed my ticket back to me.

"AC" he had punched out.

"You wouldn't tell me what this means now, would you?" I asked.

"No . . . I would not," he replied.

"Are we picking up anyone else?" I then asked.

"I am not sure," he mysteriously but deliberately replied.

"And we're going to the North Pole," I now queried.

"Not necessarily the same one you remember," he replied.

"Wait a minute," I objected. "There's gotta be only one North Pole . . . isn't there?"

"You are free to think that, sir," he replied, now turning away and walking to the next car, ". . . but that is not necessarily where this train is going."

Almost before I had seated myself in the plush, green Parlor Car, I felt the train slow to a stop again. Even though the train had picked me up facing south, I recognized we had come to a neighborhood of nice lakeside apartment towers and classic brownstone townhomes in what was north Chicago. I also noticed that Lake Michigan was now on the train's right, not on the left as it normally would be if I were really bound for Indiana, and home. I was indeed headed north now.

"All aboaaaaard!!" the Conductor called, standing beside an open door of the train in the quiet, snowy neighborhood street.

But no one came out of any of the townhomes or apartments. I noticed one light on though, in one third floor room, of one apartment tower. I could see a figure, a person, sitting near the window of that room in silhouette. It was tough to tell whether they were a he or a she, but they appeared to be grown up, like me. The person had their face in their hands though, and looked like they were crying. The scene reminded me of how I had felt at times in recent days . . . the fear, the uncertainty, the loneliness that had seemed to overwhelm me at times, amid what was supposed to be a joyous season.

"All aboaaaaard!!" the Conductor called out a second time.

The figure in the window seemed to turn a little briefly towards the train, but kept their face buried in their hands. The person then turned facing back down, even perhaps away from the window. He or she could clearly see and hear the Polar Express . . . but they would not, or could not, come down to board it.

"All aboaaaaard!!" the Conductor called a third and final time.

I went forward to the doorway of the next car where the Conductor was. When I got there, I saw him just looked at his watch, shrug and sigh a little, and waive his lantern up and down to the Engineer. The locomotive now whistled twice, and I felt the train jerk forward.

"They're not coming?" I said, noting the obvious.

"Well, you can watch, and pull the Emergency Brake . . . like you did the last time . . . if you do see them coming," the Conductor replied, almost seeming to hope that such a thing would happen as he began closing the stair trap and door, ". . . but otherwise, no . . . they're not coming."

"Was that the someone who wished for me to be here . . . on this train?" I asked.

"I . . . I am not at liberty to say, sir," the Conductor replied with surprising hesitancy, almost seeming to conceal a sadness now. "But the last time we scheduled this run in answer to the wish, we picked up the someone else . . . but did not pick you up. So now, things are reversed. Still, it's not a way I like to run this railroad."

Now I was intrigued. "Could you tell me when that was? Could you tell me anything more . . . anything at all?"

"No, I'm sorry sir, I could not," the Conductor replied flatly.

I was disappointed, yet curious . . . racking my brain to figure out when I might have possibly seen the Polar Express in recent years, but not boarded it.

"But," he said, now trying to change the subject, and even seemingly recover from his own disappointment, ". . . are you in need of refreshment?"

"Well . . . I suppose so," I said, warming up to the idea of a hot chocolate, especially one I remembered tasting so good on this train all those years ago.

"Seat yourself in the Parlor Car then, sir," he replied as he now walked away, ". . . and it will be brought right to you."

So I now turned myself back towards the Parlor Observation Car at the rear of the train, and seated myself near the big, curved windows at the far end, where I could watch the tracks recede into the distance amid the dark, bleak, snowy landscape. Any trace of Chicago and its environs had already disappeared. Some snow-covered trees and gently rolling hills of what appeared to be the Canadian Shield seemed like all there was outside now. Looking out the windows from my lounge chair, I then waited for the tap-dancing, hot chocolate-tossing chefs and waiters I remembered from my previous ride on the Polar Express.

"Nice digs you picked here," a voice suddenly said behind me. I whipped my head around to find the hobo now seated next to me. "Here, have an Irish Coffee this time," he offered as he passed a steaming mug to me. "I promise it's not my usual cup'a Joe, and it'll warm you up a whole lot more than hot chocolate will!"

"Where are the tap-dancing waiters?" I asked as I accepted the mug from him.

"You really need to see them?" he asked in reply.

"Well, I kinda expected it," I answered as I tentatively took my first sip.

"Just because something happens once," the hobo said, ". . . you expect it to happen again?"

"No, not necessarily," I defended.

"Down on your luck?" he now said, changing the subject. "Or are you still chasing skirt, like you were the last time I saw 'ya?"

"Yes on the former . . . but no on the latter," I said looking down, now feeling stung by both questions. "But I really don't want to talk about either of those."

"Interesting," he observed.

"You have something to tell me? Some profound piece of insight?" I asked with a degree of irritation at being reminded of my current misfortunes in both my work and love lives.

"Me?" he answered. "I'm just your waiter . . . or your bartender. Take your pick."

"That's just my luck," I noted. "No straight answers once again. I've been getting that in my job interviews all week here."

"Always lookin' for the easy stuff, eh?" he replied. "Well, someone gave you practically the easiest, most obvious answer in the world once . . . but you didn't see it."

"Who? What?" I asked.

"It ain't up 'ta me 'ta tell 'ya," he replied as he now disappeared.

I was now left alone with even more questions than answers as the train continued rolling along. At least the Irish Coffee I had been given was indeed good and warming. It even had a kick to it . . . a somewhat alcoholic 'hot chocolate' for grown-ups, I mused.


	2. Chapter 2

Unlike the last time I had ridden the Polar Express, I didn't feel the need to wander around the train this time, or find myself in trouble. For some strange reason, the terrain the train passed through seemed a whole lot flatter and uneventful as well . . . just dark, featureless, snowy land all around for as far as the eye could see.

"Conductor," I said, stopping him as he made his rounds and checks through my car now, ". . . this trip is not like I remember. The landscape seems different. Where are the mountains and valleys? Where's Flattop Tunnel, or . . . or Glacier Gulch?" I stammered as I struggled to remember the names of the places I had been on this train so long ago.

"As I said, sir," he replied, ". . . we're not necessarily going to the same North Pole you remember. So the route may not be as you remember, either. Your perspective has changed, and so has what you see around you. At least you're not as much trouble this time as you used to be."

"That's why everything's flatter and less dramatic, isn't it?" I guessed. "It's because my life, and my possibilities, seem that way, too."

"If you say so, sir," the Conductor responded.

"It doesn't seem like we're picking anyone else up besides the one we missed, are we?" I now asked.

"Nope," the Conductor answered. "That other passenger we were expecting gave up."

"Gave up? Why?" I asked.

"No one is obligated to make this trip, even if they once wished to," he replied.

"So, am I making this whole trip for nothing then??" I almost demanded.

"That, sir, is up to you," the Conductor replied before resuming his rounds and turning back to the next car forward.

— — — — —

The whole journey now seemed bleaker . . . as bleak as the flat, dark, and frozen landscape outside the train. I had no companions to share it with, other than the Conductor and the hobo I'd seen at times so far. Not the geeky kid who annoyed me, not the shy little kid whom I had helped, and certainly not the girl who had initially been staring and smiling at me, and with whom I had wound up sharing much of my previous experience on the Polar Express. I often wondered what had happened to them all. I even at times wished I had thought to exchange addresses and phone numbers with them, allowing us all to keep in touch somehow. Part of me even wondered if they were any more real than the train had seemed to be.

"Bored?" a now familiar voice asked behind me.

"This trip does seem to be less eventful than the last one I took on this train," I noted.

"Why do 'ya think that is?" the hobo asked, having once again appeared in the armchair next to me.

"I don't quite know," I replied.

"I'm certainly not seeing you on the roof of this car, or on the front of the locomotive, like I did the last trip," he noted. "That's why I is havin' to come in here like I am."

"Well, I don't have any reasons to be out there this time, like I was the last trip," I answered. "No one to help or save, or even to return a lost ticket to."

"Miss that, do 'ya?" he asked.

"Getting in trouble? Almost falling off this train? No, not really," I replied.

"Playin' it safe," he surmised. "It's what grown-ups get good at."

"No, I take risks every day," I countered. "Or I used to, until I got laid off."

"What? Bettin' which way a ton of pork or a barrel 'a oil is gonna go, price-wise?" he mocked. "Call that takin' a risk, do 'ya?"

"It's what probably got me laid off!" I pointedly responded. "I likely took too many risks with the commodity positions I was responsible for trading . . . lost too much money for the firm I was with."

"I see," he said. "You want a little more excitement 'round here though?"

"No," I decided, remembering some of my precarious adventures on this train from before, ". . . this car seems nice enough to me this time."

"You're missin' out," he warned. "This trip will be over before 'ya know it, and 'ya won't have seen a thing from inside these windows."

Then he was gone again.

"Well," I then thought out loud, ". . . while I don't feel like hanging off the outside of this train . . . maybe I should see the rest of it inside, if nothing else than to prove this hobo wrong."

So, leaving my laptop bag behind in the Parlor Car, as no other passengers were apparently onboard, I walked into the next car forward. Unlike my last trip on this train, I crossed easily between the cars this time. There was no daunting, icy, treacherous chasm of a gap between the cars as there had been on my last trip. Crossing between cars seemed all too easy and uneventful now. Maybe it was because I was now bigger, I thought.

When I slid open the door into the next car, I found it was just an empty coach, as I had seen before . . . as was the next car ahead of it, and the one after that. Then there was a dark car further ahead. Having come all this way through the train, I just had to check this last car out.

"The toy car," I said in recognition, as I entered this car's dim confines. It was filled with dirty, broken, discarded toys . . . just like I remembered from my previous trip years ago on this train. In fact, they seemed to even be the same toys I remembered. There was the Scrooge puppet the hobo had once tormented me with, and over there was the doll in the white dress that had seemed to touch the heart of the girl I was with on my previous journey aboard the Polar Express. Curiously though, I hadn't noticed the last time that the doll was in fact wearing a wedding dress and veil. I had never picked up a doll in my life . . . but something compelled me to pick up this one. I looked at the doll for a moment as I held it in one hand.

The doll did seem so sad, just as the girl had once said. But this doll's eyes seemed to have a spark of hope still in them. Something made me want to take it with me . . . if nothing else than to seemingly give it, and the hope it seemed to have, a chance to finally escape this dreary car.

"Playing with dolls, are we?" a voice behind me seemed to mock.

I turned around. But neither the hobo nor the Conductor were there . . . just the puppets and other toys.

"No," I answered the voice that was addressing me. I now took the doll and tucked it in the left pocket of my overcoat anyway, almost to spite whomever was apparently mocking me. "Just experiencing a memory . . . a feeling. Maybe even giving someone, or something, a chance," I defended.

"Now that's takin' a risk," the hobo remarked as he appeared among the puppets suspended from the car's ceiling. "Don't know if I'd be seen with a doll hangin' out of my pocket."

"Well, I don't mind being seen with one in my pocket," I replied. "Maybe it deserves a chance . . . maybe even a new home, outside this car."

Taking that doll now felt right to me . . . more right than ever. For some reason, I felt emboldened, even freer. No, I wasn't about to start playing with dolls, I found myself defending to even my own rational mind. But I felt I should take the doll with me . . . although I couldn't explain why.

"Seein' that you're more open to takin' risks here," the hobo noted, ". . . we've still got one thing outside on this trip 'ya might enjoy seein'. Care 'ta come with me?"

"Why not!" I suddenly found myself saying, almost with a smile.

We then exited the front of the car, and climbed up on the rear of the locomotive's tender.

"Now this is the way 'ta travel!" the hobo said as the winds and snow whipped all around us, even though I wasn't cold. "Well," he continued, almost with a devilish grin now looking forward, ". . . looks like we haven't missed Homestake Pass and Glacier Gulch yet after all! Care 'ta enjoy the best view in the house with me?"

"Yeah!" I now agreed, with a growing grin of my own.

We now clambered over the tender, jumping seemingly unnoticed onto the roof of the locomotive's cab.

"Let's go forward on the Fireman's side catwalk," the hobo suggested, pointing to the left side of the locomotive. "He's too busy shovelin' coal to be lookin' out his side!"

We slid down the locomotive's curved boiler casing to the Fireman's catwalk and worked our way along to the front. As we passed its smokebox and stack, I could hear, see, and feel the engine chugging hard up Homestake Pass . . . its metal heart and muscles seeming to beat and work not just underneath my feet and hands, but all around me.

"Right this way," he invited as we stepped down onto the small platform of locomotive's front pilot . . . just as we were passing the 'DANGER 179° GRADE' and 'USE LOW GEAR' signs at the top of the rise.

"Like old times, eh!" the hobo yelled to me as the train began its precipitous descent down the incredibly steep tracks.

"Yeah!!" I said with enjoyment, having not experienced a thrill like this since I had 'grown up'. I gripped the safety bar firmly, but I was now smiling all the way down as the train once again plunged down a near-vertical drop. I then felt my body pressed, almost slammed towards the deck as the tracks suddenly leveled out and shot upward again towards the sky and over the second rise, only to practically float off the pilot again as the train plunged down another steep downward grade, with the passing tracks, ties, and surrounding mountain pinnacles all becoming a momentary blur.

"Wow!" I said as the train finally leveled out and slowed back to a more normal speed, feeling a deep sense of renewed life in me, almost rediscovery. I added a second "Wow!" . . . just because.

"Feeling good are 'ya?" the hobo asked, still beside me.

"Yeah, I am," I admitted with a smile. "Best I've felt in a while . . . even a long time."

"So why have 'ya waited so long 'ta feel good like this again?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied, still catching my breath somewhat. "I got busy . . . first studying . . . then earning a living . . ."

"You were earning a living . . . but 'ya forgot 'ta live it?" the hobo noted.

"Yeah . . . I guess maybe I did," I replied with a sudden feeling of regret, even sadness now as I looked down.

"So, what'ya gonna do about it?" he followed up.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Regrets get 'ya nowhere," the hobo observed.

"Hey, I've been going places, doing things!" I defended with a bit of irritation, even anger.

"But are they the right things?" he asked.

Suddenly, I couldn't answer him. "Hey," I now remarked instead, trying to change the subject, ". . . where's the lake or river that I remember freezing over the tracks right about here?"

There was no answer. The hobo had disappeared, as had the lake or river that the train had once skidded over and threatened to fall into.

The hobo's question, "But are they the right things?" now echoed in my mind though, leaving me wondering as I just sat on the locomotive's pilot with my feet over the cow catcher in front, looking down at the tracks as the train continued to thunder ahead into the arctic night.

Suddenly, something emerged in my mind. Something I had thought about having . . . something I had even thought I did have at times in the past, but now in hindsight realized I didn't. It was one 'right thing' that I now wanted to have, especially this Christmas.

. . . And it was something I now strangely felt ready to ask for, if I got the chance, when I arrived at the North Pole.


	3. Chapter 3

"There you are!" I now heard a voice say over my shoulder as I continued to enjoy the view from the front pilot of the locomotive. "Trying to get into trouble again?"

"Nope," I said, almost with a smile as I now turned my head and looked up at the Conductor. "Something just led me through the train and up here . . . and I'm now glad I came."

"Well, we do want our passengers to have a pleasant trip . . . a trip that pleases them," he stated with a degree of officiousness, but yet sincerity, too.

"Hey, is that the North Pole over there?" I asked, now seeing a concentration of light ahead but off to the right, amid a sea of darkness and ice.

"Yes, that's our destination," the Conductor confirmed.

"But where are the brick railroad bridges . . . and the brick buildings?" I now asked as the train seemed to start riding upon a viaduct, a bridge that seemed to be made of little more than light itself.

"Things aren't quite so sure . . . so solid . . . for the few grown-up passengers we get," the Conductor replied. "Our route and destination reflect that."

"Will I see Santa . . . Mr. C?" I asked as I now rose and stood up on the locomotive's pilot.

"You will see what you want to here . . . and what you're ready to," the Conductor mysteriously said. "I would choose wisely."

"But sir," he now said, changing tone, " . . . we do not disembark passengers from the locomotive. So I would please ask you to return to your car, or to any other coach in the train for disembarkation."

"Sure," I smiled as I stepped up to and walked back along the Fireman's catwalk beside the locomotive's black boiler casing as he followed behind me. I climbed up and onto the cab, and then stopped and turned to the Conductor.

"You know," I said to him, " . . . there is one thing I wanted to do on this train. Something I never did. Would you and the railroad mind terribly if I could do it now? I might never get another chance."

For a change, the Conductor actually smiled at me. I was shocked. He simply gestured with a hand, ushering me down into the locomotive's warm cab.

"Steamer," the Conductor now said to the Engineer, " . . . we have a guest . . . who would like to do something . . . to help out here on the final leg of this trip as we approach our destination."

The Engineer looked at the Conductor, and then at me . . . and then just gently smiled as he rose out of his seat. He gestured with a hand now, offering it to me!

With a smile I could barely contain, I now approached and sat myself down . . . in the Engineer's seat of the Polar Express' dark and mighty 2-8-4 Berkshire steam locomotive.

"Feel free to open up the throttle just a bit more," the Engineer now coached, " . . . and let 'em know we're comin', too."

I reached up in front of me, squeezed the grip on the throttle, and pushed it further forward slightly. I felt the steam course more powerfully through the locomotive as it picked up a little more speed. I then reached for that cord on my left . . . that magic, all-important cord. I pulled it — both hearing and feeling the deep, sweet chimes of the whistle a few feet ahead of me as I did. I pulled the cord several more times, causing the great whistle to give out long, resonant calls.

Nothing . . . no other moment, had now felt so right, so deeply joyful to me in my life.

For some reason, I now felt the doll in my left overcoat pocket again. I looked down and noticed it was about to fall out. I quickly reached down and tucked it back inside the pocket, hoping no one else in the cab would notice. But my left hand lingered on it for a moment, and I looked down at the doll there in my coat pocket. She seemed to be looking up at me, meeting my gaze with her glass eyes.

_Yes,_ I felt inside, _this feeling . . . this combination._ I couldn't explain it, or what it meant.

"We're approaching our destination," the Conductor observed to the Engineer as he looked out the Fireman's doorway.

"Right," the Engineer acknowledged. "How about easing off on the throttle now and applying the train brake, just a couple notches. Also keep letting 'em know we're comin'!"

I now squeezed and pulled back on the throttle with my right hand, as my left hand pulled the brake handle as I had been encouraged to. I looked out the window as the train now approached what looked to be not a city of brick . . . but a city of light . . . pure, multi-hued light.

Structures, even figures . . . I don't know if they were people or elves, or even memories or figments of imagination . . . seemed to both emerge and blend back into the waves and patterns of light that were now beginning to surround the locomotive and train.

"What are those? What is all this?" I now asked, as I gently slowed the train further, while sounding the whistle some more as well . . . almost like a seasoned railroader now.

"They are what you make them to be," the Conductor enigmatically replied again. "Life, even Christmas, can be a little different for adults than it is for children. You get to choose what form . . . what meaning . . . it takes for you now."

"If I choose it to be as I remember . . ." I began to say. Suddenly everything around us transformed into the familiar brick structures and warmly-lit windows of Santa's North Pole city that I recalled from my last trip on the Polar Express . . . right down to the hundreds, maybe thousands of elves . . . the Christmas wreaths and garlands all around . . . and the towering Christmas Tree now ahead of the train.

"I'm back!" I almost tearfully said, " . . . I'm back."

"Yes, you are . . ." the Conductor confirmed with a gentle smile. "But come . . . once you stop this train . . . there are things here you should see, things that you should experience."

"Of course . . ." I replied as I braked the train to a smooth stop.

"Give one short blast on the whistle to let everyone know the train is now stopped," the Engineer encouraged.

I gave one short, crisp tug on the whistle cord, and was satisfied to hear the corresponding blast on the locomotive's steam whistle.

"Thank you . . . thank you all," I said as I rose out of the Engineer's seat with a sigh of reluctance. "This is practically a wonderful Christmas present right here."

"I hope it's not the only one you will ask for," the Conductor responded.

I gave him a quizzical look, wondering what he had meant by that.

"Why don't we just make an exception, and allow you to disembark via the Engineer's ladder here down from the cab?" The Conductor continued, seeming to dismiss the look I was giving him. "Allow me to precede you," he suggested as he stepped out of the cab and climbed down the ladder first.

I then stopped as I looked out of the doorway from the locomotive's cab for a moment. There it was, in all its rich glory, form, and substance . . . the North Pole, Christmas Town, Santa's City . . . whatever you might want to call it. Each of the many buildings was fringed, even infused with light. Crowds of elves were jumping and tumbling as they gathered around the sky-high Christmas Tree in the city's central plaza. This time, it all was familiar . . . a return, even a reunion for me.

This time, I couldn't wait to be a part of it all!

I turned and climbed smoothly down the locomotive's ladder. I then looked down nearing the bottom only to see myself plant a foot squarely not just on, but through, an elf! He suddenly disappeared amid a flash, almost a puff of light — not seeming to have even noticed me . . . or my foot passing through him.

"Wha-What goes on?" I asked almost in shock as I now stepped onto the brick pavement at the bottom of the locomotive's ladder.

"As I said, sir," the Conductor replied, " . . . this is not the same North Pole that you remember. If you'll excuse me though, I have some paperwork to fill out while we're here."

"But what do I do? Where do I go?" I asked, no longer sure of much of anything concerning where I was now.

"Explore, experience . . . realize," he encouraged. "We don't provide escorted tours for grown-ups on these extra runs. It's not part of the package," he said in his clipped, formal way.

"When do we leave? How do I know when to get back?" I asked.

"You will not miss this train, sir," he replied, just inches from my face again, " . . . unless you choose to."

That last comment sent a chill down my spine.

The Conductor then turned and swiftly went back down alongside the train, boarding, almost disappearing, into a coach.

Hoards of elves continued to walk past me, around me, and sure enough through me . . . or at least into me, disappearing in puffs of light as they encountered my legs.

"What do I do now?" I wondered aloud, feeling almost lost in a city that no longer appeared as real as I had felt it to be even a few moments ago.

"You wanna get to the heart of the matter . . . why you're here?" a now familiar voice behind me asked.

I turned to see the hobo next to me again. I looked down to see that the elves were going around him, and even bumping into his legs with objections like, "Hey! Out of the way!" and "Move it!"

"Want me to get rid of all this?" he asked, seeming to be somewhat annoyed with the elves, and all the other trappings of what we both now knew was a reality that could be changed, practically at will, to suit our preferences.

"No airship and parachuting or bungee-jumping elves this time?" I asked.

"Sure . . . if you want 'em," he offered as he pointed upwards beyond the giant Christmas Tree.

Suddenly, there it all was . . . the twin-hulled airship with Santa's giant bag of presents, brushing the star off the Christmas tree with elves first parachuting off to lighten the load, and then bungee-jumping down to catch the falling star . . . all just as I remembered it. I thought I could even see my younger self and my friends, peering out from the top of Santa's bag.

"Are 'ya here just to see all that again?" the hobo asked next to me.

"What am I here for then?" I asked, turning to him.

"Now you're talkin'!" he replied with a smile as everything around us vanished into waves of light that looked like the Northern Lights.

Amid the undulating patterns of white and colored light now, I began to perceive vague impressions, feelings, and occasionally brief images . . . almost glimpses.

"What are these?" I asked.

"A message," the hobo said. "All this is a note . . . for you. Something that someone has long wanted to tell you, but didn't know if you were really there to tell it to, and didn't know if you would ever be ready to receive, or able to accept it. I'll leave you here now. Just watch, listen . . . and feel . . ."

The hobo vanished. But strangely, I didn't feel alone.

"Hello . . ." another, different voice called out to me. With just that one word, this voice suddenly gave me the warmest, richest, and most moving sensations I had ever felt. That one word from this single voice echoed, resonated, and filled me melodiously, like nothing else ever had.

"Hello?" the now clearly feminine voice repeated, seeming a little uncertain.

"Answer her," the hobo said, suddenly appearing next to me again.

"I thought you said you were leaving me alone here," I remarked to him.

"Just trying to help," he assured as he disappeared again.

"You're not there . . . not real . . . are you?" the feminine voice now said.

"Yes," I finally answered, fearful that the voice would drift away . . . that I would lose her before I even knew who this sweet-sounding essence was. "I'm here . . . and I'm real . . . well, I come from a real and solid place . . . Indiana . . . anyway. I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan originally though," I added, trying to sound as real and down-to-earth as possible.

"You're . . . real?" the voice replied, its hope and warmth seeming to return, " . . . really there?"

"Yes," I replied, now feeling an increasingly strong desire to reassure, even comfort the voice . . . and the spirit, or whatever or whomever she was behind it. "I'm really here. Can I see you?"

"N-no . . . not yet," the voice hesitated amid the waves of light.

"Why not?" I simply asked.

"Because you could not accept me before," the voice said, " . . . accept or understand what I tried to convey to you as plain as day . . . not in words, but in every other way I could . . . smiles, looks, everything. But really . . . neither you, nor I, were truly ready for it. I'm not all that sure you could accept me and what I want to convey to you now, actually."

"How do you know," I said, " . . . unless you show me?"

"Let me show you . . . what I desire," the voice suggested.

A tapestry of images, sounds, smells, and sensations . . . all the things I associated with Christmas . . . began to surround me. There were presents, both wrapped and opened, around a Christmas tree. But strangely, they seemed like just wispy shadows. What seemed the most solid and real of all though was the warm embrace I was suddenly feeling. It warmed me, even melted me . . . like nothing else ever had. I noticed a sprig of Mistletoe in front of me . . . or was it above me? Suddenly I felt a warm, passionate, incredibly loving kiss upon my lips. It was so wonderful. It brought tears to my eyes.

"Merry Christmas," the voice said, " . . . my love."

I opened my heart . . . fully now . . . to what I was experiencing. I returned the embrace that I was feeling tightly with my mind. I felt an arm wrapped around my neck and shoulder, clothed in the softest and warmest sweater I could ever imagine. I felt a warm, smooth cheek pressed against mine, and sensed that my nose was surrounded by some densely curly or wavy, but wonderful hair that had the sweetest scent about it. It all was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was something though I had long unknowingly, but instinctively wanted . . . even for Christmas . . . especially for Christmas.

"Would you like this?" the voice asked, seeming to still embrace me . . . to embrace all that I was. "Would you like this for Christmas? . . . Always?"

I now couldn't stop the tears of joy beginning to flow from my eyes at all that I was feeling and experiencing.

"Yes," I said, embracing the voice . . . what or whomever she was . . . back with my entire being. "I want this . . . for Christmas . . . and for always . . ."

"Then wish it," the voice invited. "Wish it with me for Christmas . . . please. I need you to . . ."

"I wish," I said with my eyes closed tight as I relished the ethereal embrace I was sharing, " . . . that I have this . . . that I experience, know, share, and cherish this . . . for Christmas, and every other day . . . now and always. This is more real, more wonderful . . . than any other gift I have wished for . . . or could wish for Christmas . . . ever."

"Thank you . . . thank you, my love," the voiced said, as I felt myself deeply kissed once more.

I didn't want to let go of this feeling . . . let go of her now. I wanted to experience this . . . to experience her . . . and be with it, even a part of it . . . of her . . . always.

Then I heard a steam whistle off in the distance seemingly behind me. "All aboaaaaard!" I also heard the Conductor call in the distance.

"No . . . not now!" I said, still embracing the voice . . . the spirit . . . with all that I was.

"Don't you want to embrace me as more than just light and sensations?" the voice asked.

"I don't want to lose you . . . to lose this," I replied, " . . . now that I've found you."

"I know," the voice empathized. "I didn't when I was here, either."

"Was here?" I asked with surprise.

"Remember, you came here alone this time," the voice reminded, " . . . and so did I . . . on a previous trip, as a grown-up. You and I can only feel each other here . . . across the gap that's between us. We can't be together fully here . . . as we are right now."

"All aboaaaaard!" the Conductor called a second time.

"What do I do?" I asked the voice urgently.

"Go, my love," the voice warmly encouraged. "Go . . . get back on that train. And then get ready . . . 'cause I'm gonna find you."

"How?" I asked, still not wanting to let go of even her ethereal presence.

"No time now!" the voice said urgently. "You have to get back onboard that train before the Conductor yells 'All Aboard' again . . . otherwise this, what we're experiencing now, is all we'll ever share. I want more. I want it all . . . with you. Please go . . . and trust that I will find you. Please . . ."

I cried openly as I gently started to let go of her essence that I was embracing. "No," I said, " . . . I don't want to let go of this."

"What happened after Billy let go of his present, and allowed the elves to put it back in Mr. C's bag?" the voice asked. "Go, please . . . for me . . . for us, now . . ."

"I . . . I remember that . . ." I said with a half smile as I took a sad breath . . . and let go of the voice, of her essence, fully. Suddenly, I found myself alongside the Polar Express again, with the Conductor right in front of me.

"Thought you might not show up. Almost thought you might stay," he said. "Ticket, please."

"But I want to say goodbye," I replied sadly.

"Are you sure you really need to say goodbye? . . . Or, should you be getting ready to say hello?" he asked as he held out his hand for my ticket.

I now smiled as I comprehended his meaning. I then reached into my shirt pocket, the one pocket on me closest to my heart, and produced the ticket again. The conductor once again took my ticket, hiding it behind his back as he punched it.

"Thank you, sir," he said as he produced it and handed it back to me.

I looked at it . . .

ACCEPT

. . . the punch marks now read.

"I have an idea of what this might mean," I said to him.

The Conductor now smiled and nodded approvingly as he gestured for me to reboard the train. I paused, looking around me . . . at the red bricked, festive, and brightly lit city that had appeared around me once more.

"Hurry sir," the Conductor urged. "We still have to get you back, and then make our regular run. You wouldn't want all those young ones to be deprived of the experience you once had, would you?"

"No . . . but I'm not seeing Santa, Mr. C, this time, am I?" I sighed as I reluctantly stepped up the stairs of the train car.

"Who do you think made sure your someone's Christmas wish was conveyed to you . . . and yours back to her?" a deep voice now asked behind me.

I looked around to find the kindly Mr. C on the red brick plaza just outside the train's door where I was. I almost cried with joy when I saw him.

"I will always be real," Mr. C assured, "as real as you'll let me be, inside your heart. But you're grown now . . . and I need your help, to make Christmas real for others . . . especially for a someone here on my list who has made a special request, a wish that only you can make come true. Not just for one moment, or one day a year . . . but for a lifetime."

"I will," I assured him as the train whistled and began to move, "and not just for her . . . but with her. I promise."

"I know you will," Mr. C replied as he extended a hand into the stairwell of the car I was in.

Grabbing a handrail with my left hand, I stepped down to the bottom of the stairwell and shook his hand as I tearfully nodded in acceptance of his commission to me. His handshake was firm, and real . . . as real as any hand I have ever clasped. That memory would stay with me always. I just knew it would.

As the train started to pull away, my hand parted from Mr. C's, and we waived at, and almost saluted, each other. A magic, indefinable spirit of Christmas, had passed from him to me. I was one of Santa's helpers now . . . charged with helping Mr. C to spread the spirit of Christmas however I could.

I wanted my own 'helper', too though. But now, I knew I would find her . . . or rather that she would find me.

"Atta boy!" I suddenly found the hobo saying next to me as I finished climbing the stairs back into the train car. He even gave me a surprisingly firm slap on the back. "Here, let's go back into your Parlor Car and celebrate your 'graduation' with some of the finest Irish Coffee you ever tasted!"

"No," I gently countered. "Let's go up to the roof, and sit around your campfire for a spell . . . and have the tap-dancing waiters deliver some good 'ol hot chocolate, right to us!"

"See 'ya up there," he smiled as he vanished, while I proceeded to find the ladder leading up to the train's roof at the rear platform of the Parlor Car.

— — — — —

"Here it all is," the hobo invited as I soon arrived up on the roof of the Parlor Car at the rear of the train.

Not only did he have a healthy campfire going, but the tap-dancing waiters and chefs were all lined up behind him, with an entire urn of hot chocolate among them, and a steaming cup of it already on a saucer, resting on top of a sitting-box . . . all waiting for me.

"We just had to pull out the stops and celebrate in style, my friend," the hobo continued as I picked up the cup and saucer and sat down on the box. "Consider this not just a graduation party, but maybe a bachelor party, too."

"Don't you think you're being a bit premature?" I asked. "After all, I haven't even really met this someone face-to-face yet."

"What do you think . . . really?" he asked in reply. "She allowed you to see into her heart . . . right into her heart! I should know. I was there with her on the other side of the light, when she left her message . . . several years ago now by your calendar. I even encouraged her some . . . helped her to take a risk, seize the chance."

"Then . . . thank you, my friend," I said as I extended my hand across his campfire. "I . . . and she . . . owe you, more than we can ever say."

"Well, you're welcome," he accepted modestly as he shook my hand. "Glad I could help . . . glad 'ta do it."

"But would you mind telling me when she left her message," I then asked, " . . . by my calendar."

"That was the problem, as I recall," he replied. "You couldn't take your nose out of your calendar. We even backed this rattler right up to the back of the Options Exchange tower at La Salle Street Station where you were workin' at the time . . . sounded the whistle for 'ya a bunch of times to try and get your attention that Christmas Eve. But 'ya didn't come down out of that tower."

I looked down as I remembered that Christmas Eve . . . how I had just lost the firm I was then with over $1.2 million on a stock index options trade, and was madly studying the charts and technical indicators on those options late into the night to figure out where I had gone wrong. I had even fallen asleep at my desk that night, and thought I'd heard this steam whistle, but dismissed it . . . figuring it was just a nearby factory or power plant I hadn't heard before. I was too stressed, too worried, too sad . . . to even look out a nearby window and see what was sounding those whistle blasts. I even remembered now hearing the train go . . . letting it go. I so wished now that I had not.

"She was already on the train?" I asked.

"Practically cryin' in my arms," he replied.

I briefly closed my eyes and cringed with sadness and guilt now. "You convinced her to leave the message?" I followed up.

"I convinced her to open the doorway between you two . . . and to say hello . . . to even take a risk at beginning to express the deep and long-held dream she had for you and her," he responded. "Took both me and the Conductor, even the Engineer and Fireman, the whole trip up to convince her to even risk saying hello as she did. Teaching her how to really drive the hog helped brighten her spirits a fair amount, though. But after she got up the courage to say hello . . . you, and her, did the rest."

I began to smile somewhat now. "Is there anything about her . . . anything else, I need to know."

"What do you think?" he asked. "After all, you're the one, besides her, who's most directly involved."

"No," I decided looking beyond the train as it proceeded south. "I'm ready to meet her . . . out there, back in Chicago."

"She's been ready to meet you again, too . . . for some time now," the hobo replied. "Had some rough spots in her life, she's had. She's tough, even a professional, now. She deserves a reward for all that though . . . someone good."

"Like me?" I asked.

"Like you, kid," the hobo agreed. "Just like you. But drink up! We don't have much time. However, we got a whole lot 'a hot chocolate here to finish!"

I smiled now as I took a healthy swig of hot chocolate. "I wish she was here . . . to share this train ride with me," I sighed afterward, looking into the hobo's campfire.

"Take her for a train ride, kid," the hobo encouraged. "Take her for lots of train rides . . . especially on trains like this. Trust me, that'll make up for you missin' her rattler . . . and her missin' yours. Who knows, she might even wanna drive the hog . . . if so, let her!"

"I will," I promised as I held up my cup in pledge . . . even as a waiter now refilled it. _I will,_ I vowed to myself.


	4. Chapter 4

"Next stop, Chicago . . . Van Buren Street Station. Van Buren Street Station, next stop," the Conductor called on the public address system, even though I was the only passenger onboard.

I sat in the Parlor Car one more time as the locomotive and cars of the Polar Express now rode familiar rails . . . from the south no less . . . into Chicago — rails that I had traveled many times upon in my daily commutes from Indiana. I had never felt so refreshed and renewed from a train trip in my life though, as I was now. It had been better than even my first trip on this magic train. I was feeling wonderful as the train slowed to a stop at the Van Buren Street platforms, the wheels gently squealing as the brakes were applied a final time for me.

"Careful, watch your step," the Conductor warned as he opened the door and I stepped off the Polar Express back at the high-platformed station. Having lost my magic sleigh bell during my previous trip on this train, I double-checked one more time to make sure the doll was still in my left overcoat pocket, as I also made sure that my laptop bag was slung over my right shoulder. As soon as my first foot touched the platform though, it slid out from under me on a fine coating of ice and snow, and I fell flat on my back on the platform again.

Things seemed to go dark once more as I heard the Conductor kneeling over me, calling, "Sir . . . Sir . . ."

"Sir . . . Sir . . ." I now heard, with many more noises around me. I heard people talking, and even sensed a crowd around me. Someone was kneeling over me now, calling to me, "Sir . . . Sir . . . are you alright? I'm a doctor," the voice said. All I could tell was that the person talking to me was female.

I began to become aware of my body again . . . of the serious pain now in my head and back. I was aware that the wind hand been knocked out of me, and that I now had difficulty breathing. My arms were stretched out either side of me. I could still feel them as I lay prone on the platform. My left hand now felt something against it . . . what seemed like artificial hair, a small, plastic head, and the lacy frills of a small dress, even a veil. My left fingers could barely touch it. I suddenly became fearful that whatever it was, it might be knocked out of my grasp.

"Left . . . hand . . ." I managed to murmur urgently, still just beginning to regain consciousness.

"Oh my God," I now heard the woman kneeling over me gasp. I sensed the object being lifted out of my left fingers. I turned my head slowly and opened my eyes, trying to focus on the object the woman was now holding and examining. "It's the doll!" the female doctor now said. "The doll . . . that we saw . . . years ago . . ."

"Do you . . . remember me?" she now said to me as I tried to squint my eyes and focus on what seemed like her dark hair and tan face. I just moaned something and began slightly shaking my head. She then leaned down to me and whispered in my ear, "Are you the boy I couldn't help staring at on the Polar Express? The one who found my ticket? The one I shared those adventures with?"

A shock of amazement ran right through me as I put two and two together . . . her words, with that voice, the sweet scent and feel of her hair, and the warmth and smoothness of her cheek as it brushed against mine. I tried again to look and focus on her, as she pulled her own head back slightly to look at me again.

"Yesss . . ." I now whispered. "Polar Express . . ."

"Do you know how long I've been wondering just how real you and all that were?" she quietly asked with something of a tearful smile now in her voice. "Do you know how long I've wished that you were real? I . . . I gave up hope last Christmas. I even dreamed that I couldn't get on the Polar Express last time because I couldn't take it if you hadn't gotten on again . . ."

"So it was you . . . we stopped to pick up . . . this trip . . . but you didn't get on," I whispered slowly, the memories of seeing the crying figure in the apartment from the train coming back now.

She now looked at me strangely while still kneeling over me. "That was Christmas Eve . . . last year," she said. "I thought it was a dream that I allowed the Polar Express to pass me by . . ."

"I was there . . . on that train . . ." I whispered.

"It was real?" she now whispered, almost crying.

"Yes," I assured, remembering her message and our encounter at the North Pole. "It was real . . . and so am I."

She allowed herself to cry for a moment in wonder as she gently held her gloved hands to her face, seeming to try to conceal her emotions while she still looked at me.

"Your message . . . the light . . . North Pole . . ." I added in confirmation, now knowing whom I had found . . . or rather, who had found me.

"Make way! Make way! Paramedics!" we both now heard two men announce nearby.

"Let's get you to a hospital," she gently said, taking a breath and trying to regain her composure as she now saw the paramedics approaching. "I'm a doctor," she now told the paramedics, showing her hospital photo ID badge to them as they knelt down and began to check me out. "He appears to have suffered a concussion on the rear of his head, and is exhibiting signs of moderate shock."

She carefully ran her thinly-gloved hands under my shoulders and back from both sides, before adding, "But otherwise there appear to be no major fractures in his shoulders, hips, or back . . . and he appears stable enough for transport. I'll be going with this man to the hospital, though," she added, looking warmly at me.

The paramedics then departed to fetch a stretcher for me.

"Here," I weakly said, feeling the doll lying once again by my left hand and picking it up. "This is for you . . . Merry Christmas . . ."

She reverently took the doll, dirty and time worn as it was, and looked at it again. She then held it close to her as she looked at me with renewed tears in her eyes, before carefully tucking it inside her own overcoat.

"I'm not supposed to do this for a patient," she said, as she now gently cushioned my head with her gloved hand while the paramedics were still away. "And I haven't ever done this on a first date. But," she said, still hardly able to believe what was happening, ". . . you got my message . . . my Polar Express wish . . ."

"I did," I confirmed, ". . . and I wished it with you . . ."

I could now sense she wanted to hug me tightly with joy. But given my injuries on the platform, I could also sense the physician in her was keeping her from doing so.

"Well . . . Merry Christmas . . . and thank you, thank you so much . . ." she whispered as tears fell from her eyes and she gently gave me an ever so soft, but soul-melting kiss.

I could only look at her and smile after that kiss of hers.

Seeing the paramedics return with a stretcher, she took a deep breath again, trying to resume her professional demeanor. "Okay guys, let's lift him on three," the doctor now professionally instructed the two paramedics as she gently placed her hands underneath my head and one shoulder, ". . . one . . . two . . . three."

I felt myself being carefully lifted onto the wheeled stretcher. I was then conveyed up the stairs and out of the station to the waiting ambulance.

"You live . . . in north Chicago," I whispered as we approached the ambulance. "What were you doing here . . . at Van Buren Station? These trains don't serve your neighborhood."

"Now I know you were on that train outside my apartment!" she said with another warm, tearful smile as she gently shook her head. "But you know, tonight I felt led, inspired to take a walk before I went home. I was even about to take a ride on the South Shore . . . for the heck of it. It just felt like the right thing to do. That's when I found you, lying on the platform."

"Sorry you didn't get your train ride tonight," I hoarsely apologized.

"Maybe we can fix that," she suggested, ". . . later."

All during the ambulance ride to the hospital, and right through admission into the Emergency Room's Triage section, she never let go of my hand once, except to take the gloves off of hers.

Some might say that we weren't really each other's type. There were times when I might have agreed with such an assessment. She later confessed to me that she had wondered about that, too . . . for a long time. But seeing her light brown hand intertwined with my fairer-skinned fingers in the ambulance . . . nothing had ever looked so right to me now.


	5. Chapter 5

So she nursed me back to health at the hospital. Sure, she was a doctor in the hospital's pediatric ward . . . and I wasn't a kid . . . but she would visit and check on me every day, usually a couple times a day . . . even on her weekend off. On the day I was released from the hospital, I just couldn't find myself saying goodbye to her . . . and neither could she.

"Would you like to go for a train ride?" I invited as we stood at the hospital's front door, both of us not quite knowing what to do next.

She just hugged me.

Luckily, she was able to take the day off, and so I treated her to a ride on the South Shore line that morning as our first date outside the hospital. I even pointed out my house in Beverly Shores as we went by it on the train.

We went by my house because I had planned to take her to lunch in a classic café I knew of beside the line a little further east in Michigan City, Indiana, where we could continue watching the interurban trains go by, right down the middle of the street, just like we remembered the Polar Express doing. Having never been there before, she practically fell in love with the town and its classic brick buildings and tree-lined streets . . . her falling in love with me I wasn't worried about right then.

Over lunch however, I eventually confessed to her where I was in life at the moment . . . job and money-wise. I almost cringed as I told her, suddenly fearing it could cause her to lose interest in me . . . or at least put a damper on our day.

" . . . I just felt you should know this about me . . . where I'm at right now," I said, concluding my confession as I looked down. "I just care enough about you to want to be honest with you."

"Don't worry about it," she just responded with a smile, to my surprise. "Give me that check, please."

"But . . ." I replied, wanting to be a gentleman and pay for our lunch anyway.

"You don't want to screw up the wish now, do you? . . . Our Polar Express wish?" she simply replied.

"No . . ." I said with a growing smile as I passed, more like surrendered, the check to her. I had a feeling she would come to use that question on me again in the future . . . possibly a lot!

"If you don't mind my saying so . . . it seems to me you've just been in the wrong line of work," she then suggested, suddenly seeming to know and have a better perspective on me than I did! "It has got you part of the way. But now, you just need to change tracks . . . get on a different train in life. I'd like to help . . . if you'd let me. Don't worry, you can return the favor though. I'm not exactly liking hospital work myself."

I just kissed her across the table, right there.

"Thank you . . ." we both just said together, at the same time.

"What for?" I then asked. "What am I doing for you here?"

"Just making my wish come true," she replied with a tear in her eye again.

"I'm sorry I missed your train years ago," I said, almost sighing with regret. "I could have been making your wish come true a long time ago."

"And I'm so sorry I didn't take the 'second chance' train I was being given last Christmas," she replied, knowing what I was referring to. "I've been haunted by that dream for a year now . . . and I've had to wait this whole extra year, too." She stopped and looked down. I could tell how she was now feeling over missing that run of the Polar Express.

"It's okay . . . it's all okay," I assured her as I held her hands across the table, trying to keep her from crying with regret.

"I am just so glad I listened to that idea inside me the other night to take that walk to Van Buren Street Station," she continued, trying to focus on the positive now. "I just suddenly felt I needed to be by, or on, a train that night, right then."

"I'm glad you did, too," I said warmly, " . . . and so's the back of my head!"

"Could I tell you something crazy though?" she then quietly asked as she leaned forward closer towards me, " . . . something that just would seem to make no sense?"

"Tell me . . ." I invited with a smile.

"Right now, I'm feeling the way I felt when I only heard and felt you as light," she said, almost whispering across the table, " . . . up north . . . at the North Pole . . . years ago."

"I'm feelin' just as wonderful," I assured.

"Thank you . . . for urging me to let go of you though, and get back on the Polar Express that night," she said. "I like being here with you even better."

"Wait . . . I said that to you?" I replied in surprise. "I heard you say that to me . . . when I was up there Christmas Eve!"

She gave me a warm smile. "Maybe we were both hearing it . . . standing together closer than we thought," she suggested. "Good advice though, wasn't it? Glad we both took it. Maybe it's just part of the magic. But hey, since time seems to mean nothing there . . . let me just tell it to you right now."

"Go, my love," she then just up and said as she gently tightened her hold on my hands across the table, "Go . . . get back on that train. And then get ready . . . 'cause I'm gonna find you."

There it suddenly was . . . that voice, and those words, together . . . right in front of me.

"Go, my special one . . ." I echoed back to her as I looked into her eyes, without thinking of what I was now saying. "Go . . . get back on that train. And then find me. It will take a while . . . but don't stop searching. Just listen to your heart and mind, and do what feels right. That's how you will find me. You'll recognize me by my needing your help . . . and by something I'll have for you. I will make up for all the waiting, and the searching though. I will . . . I promise . . ."

"What happened after Billy let go of his present," we both just added together, " . . . and allowed the elves to put it back in Mr. C's bag? Go, please . . . for me . . . for us, now . . ."

We then could only stop and look at each other for a moment. There it was . . . that marvelous moment when we just knew . . . that it was right . . . and it was real, all real. The circle for us was now complete. Our final words and messages of encouragement to each other had been sent . . . right there in that café.

"I can't just sit across this table from you any longer," she tearfully whispered.

"Ready to enjoy some more magic?" I then suggested as we both then got up, and she drew close to me. "Let's go catch another train . . . I don't care where it's going."

She smiled . . . just before she buried her face against my shoulder and cried . . . cried for joy as I held her tightly, just like we did together in the light.

— — — — —

We spent the rest of the afternoon riding the South Shore line that day, running all the way east to South Bend and back through the Indiana dunelands along Lake Michigan . . . both ways . . . several times! We began making up for lost time, lost chances, lost Christmases . . . right there, on those trains we rode together.

"Would you mind if we did dinner, too?" she asked as we finally made it back to Chicago that evening, sealing her invitation with a kiss as we sat together on a train as it approached the end of the line at Randolph Street Station.

"We're in your town now," I smiled. "Lead the way."

She proceeded to treat me to dinner that evening at a grand restaurant along the city's Magnificent Mile, as we talked more . . . a lot more. We capped the night with a chilly but wonderful moonlight walk and kiss on the Navy Pier along the Lake Michigan shore. Although I'd done a lot of sitting during the day, she insisted on hailing a taxi to get us the short distance to the pier, so that I wouldn't overdo it on my first day out of the hospital.

"Merry Christmas, my Polar Express guy," she said to me as we ended our kiss at the Navy Pier, even though it was now several days after December 25th. But it was just the fifth day of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

"Merry Christmas, my Polar Express . . . partner," I replied, openly hinting where I wanted to go with all this — knowing then that not only did I have a fellow appreciator of train travel in my arms, but a kindred, Christmas-loving spirit as well, even a Santa's helper of my very own. With yet another one of her tearfully grateful smiles, and even a soft "yes" from her . . . two of them, actually . . . she let me know she now had such a person in her life, too.

"Just to be sure," I cautioned, " . . . you don't think all this is too soon . . . too quick?"

"What do you think?" she asked me as we continued to hold each other, throwing it right back to me . . . almost the way the hobo would.

"I think we have us quite a Christmas to plan this coming year," I replied.

"Yeah . . ." she agreed smiling, as she gave me another powerful, soul-melting kiss that I now knew so well.

— — — — —

By the next Christmas, we decided to run our own 'Polar Express' . . . renting a whole classic train complete with a 2-8-4 Berkshire steam locomotive, to get married on. During the reception afterwards . . . and after we had each changed out of our wedding clothes . . . I had even arranged for her to drive the locomotive for a while as a surprise. She is still fondly recalling that highlight of our wedding day. We ran the train on the South Shore line, right past my house . . . well, it's our house now.

She's still a pediatrician, but now she runs her own clinic just two stops from our Beverly Shores home east along the South Shore line in her adopted and beloved Michigan City. And when she's not healing children, she's taking in and repairing toys at a toy rescue clinic she helped to establish in a vacant storefront right next to her clinic, inspired by the neglected toys both she and I had seen in the toys car of the Polar Express . . . as well as by the doll that had helped her to find and recognize me. That clinic now helps forgotten and neglected toys to 'recover' and find new homes, bringing joy to children who could really use some.

The doll that helped us to recognize each other is bright and clean now herself, but never seems to stay in the same place in our home for long. So she's anything but just forgotten and neglected on a shelf. And my bell, it hangs from its small leather straps in an archway between our dining room and living room . . . there to be rung by either one of us whenever we want a lift, or some Christmas spirit at any time of year, or to let the other know through its sweet tones that we love each other. Passing trains sometimes manage to ring it as well!

And me? Instead of trading commodities, I now help manage and run the railroad. And every year, I make sure that there is a 'Polar Express' that runs on my line at Christmastime . . . big steam locomotive and all. We sell tickets to anyone who wants to take part in the magic, as well as give away tickets to deserving children and their families, along with a fair number of the toys that my wife . . . well, both of us, really . . . rescue and heal at the toy clinic each year. I now even get to play the seemingly 'gruff' Conductor, but I make sure everyone has a good time. My wife and I also take turns driving the steam locomotive every once in a while — having each earned full engineer certifications, of course! It is now the thrill of a lifetime for both of us though, when I'm the Conductor and she's the Engineer of our 'Polar Express'. I love looking forward, waving my lantern, and seeing her look back from the cab with a knowing smile on her face, just before she pulls on the whistle cord.

In all this, my wife and I fully realize that we're just helping Mr. C to do his job. That's what we're doing now . . . together, and with more shared fun and joy than either of us could have ever imagined . . . or wished for.

On Christmas Eve though, I always see to it that space is left on the tracks, and that a running slot at a certain time is kept open in the railroad's official timetable. Even with our first child asleep, and another one now on the way, my wife and I are keeping our annual tradition together, watching out a trackside window of our home, right at five minutes before midnight . . .

. . . in case the real Polar Express shows up, even to pass by at speed.

Actually, we just call it to us now . . . closing our eyes as we hold each other tightly, just as we did in the light . . . with the rich tapestry of our shared Christmas all around us. Together, we feel the train's thunder on the tracks outside our house, and hear its whistle cry out loudly into the night.

We can't wait until it's time for our children to take a ride . . .


End file.
